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Join our Unconference and use the day to talk about everything techcomm!

Two days of learning–technology, concepts, and skills with the best technical communicators in Silicon Valley. TC Camp is an Unconference, where techcomm leaders gather to learn and grow.

This is an event for the elite, for the people who want to be known as the movers and shakers. The people in techcomm who want to be the ones who can handle anything–by themselves, through their networks, and through their capabilities.

And they’re all here to work together to make everyone better!

What’s New This Year?

If you’ve never been to camp before, know that this is YOUR TC Camp. TC Camp is what you make of it.

The main event is the FREE Unconference. There is absolutely no cost to attend the main event. See the schedule…

However, if you want a little help getting your brain going early on a Saturday morning, you can add an optional morning workshop — Dawn Stevens (Taxonomy), Jessica Parker (Website Generators), or Mark Thompson (Collaboration) — for only $40. If none of those strike your fancy, you can always attend Matt Sullivan’s Adobe workshop for FREE. Learn more…

If you’re looking to expand your skills in the hottest growing techcomm sub-speciality, you can also add optional the Pre-Camp API Day for only $140 for a full day of training. We have new instructors with a brand new class! Learn more…

Keynote: The Future of Illusions

At most companies, marketing and technical communications rarely unite even though both professions create content. Also, rumors abound that new technologies, such as chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) might reduce the necessity of both roles or increase internal struggles for their funding. Learn how content created by Salesforce is displacing the future of these illusions.

In this keynote, attendees will learn:

How to solve competitive content requirements across teams

How to reuse content to build memorable customer experiences

Why different teams across a huge company are creating content together

Why techcomm professionals should market their knowledge and curtail their quirks

Keynote speaker: Gavin Austin

Gavin Austin, Salesforce

Gavin Austin is a Principal Technical Writer at Salesforce, where he’s been writing a variety of content for over 14 years. He helped Salesforce radically change its content strategy in 2015, and he has delivered a number of highly-rated talks at Dreamforce, Intelligent Content Conference, Information Development World, Write the Docs San Francisco, University of Washington, Blue Shield of California, CA Technologies, Agile2013, WritersUA, LavaCon, and more. In his spare time, he runs (and somehow finishes) 100-mile ultramarathons. He also loves burritos.

The Amphitheater! (AKA Lightning Talks)

Remember when camp was camp, and we had no fear performing in silly skits? TC Camp does. The Amphitheater is an informal opportunity to get up in front of your peers and try something new, share your expertise, and gain confidence as a speaker. Learn more…

Dedicated API Track!

Because so many people propose and vote on API topics, we’re going to dedicate one table to those topics. We’ve got someone who will curate and choose those topics, as well. This year, you can get down deep into API doc specifics because you’ll have four sessions dedicated to the topic!

Dot-voting and electronic voting!

Unconference sessions are determined by the attendees on the day of the event. Usually we do this with dot voting during the lunch break. You can vote electronically too — only registered attendees can vote, so don’t worry! You can vote now or vote later…

TC Camp 2019 Sponsors

Without our sponsors TC Camp is not possible! Please help us thank them by visiting their websites. They keep this event free.

With the convergence of marketing and technical content across enterprises – Adobe’s new-age solutions will empower your organization to create valuable experiences that build your brands, drive demand, and extend the reach and ROI of customer-facing content, pre-sale AND post-sale.

Camp Scout Leader

Docforce is the platform that enables Writing as a Service. It is an advanced collaborative content creation and consulting platform designed to bring on-demand professional technical writing services to companies of any size on a Pay-As-You-Go or Subscription Basis.

JustSystems is a leading global software provider with three decades of successful innovation in office productivity, information management, and consumer and enterprise software. Since 1999 content developers have turned to XMetaL Author Enterprise for the best combination of easy-to-use authoring and tool customizability.

XMetaL (WINNER)

Comtech Services

SimplyXML

Thanks to the Volunteers

Thanks to all the volunteers who made TC Camp 2019 happen and a success.

To everyone who volunteered the day of the event at the registration desk, organizing the session matrix, answering questions, helping vendors set up and workshops get organized, and all of the 1001 little things it takes for an event like this to happen:

Bruce Faithwick

Celine Dion

Cherie Woodward

Claire Lundeby

Clarence Cromwell

Debra Eskinazi Stockdale

Eliana Jain

Jill Elhonsali

Karie Fraley

Liz Fraley

Mahesh Rattehalli

Paul Fraley

Scott Prentice

Tonie Flores

To everyone who volunteered at to help transcribe the scribe notes, so we could post it all to the web. We’ve tried automated services, but those who are not in our industry tend to guess wrong when it’s hard to read the handwriting. Thanks so much to everyone who helped out:

Bruce Faithwick

Claire Lundeby

Debra Eskinazi Stockdale

Elaina Cherry

Li-At Rathbun

Liz Fraley

Mark Giffin

Scott Prentice

To the board members who worked to secure fundraising, the venue, the catering, and get all the supplies; who helped find and secure excellent workshop leaders; who volunteered at the event; and who picked up all those little extra tasks without being asked:

Difference between Git and GitHub: GitHub is the GUI layer and Git is the core. Git commands are from the point of view of the Git server.

Where should your output go? It should not be source controlled. Example: Source is in GitLab, build with Jekyll & place the output in the same folder. GitLab and GitHub are competitors using the same git engine.

Note: The main advantage of GitLab is its opensource nature, which allows you to run GitLab on your own servers. GitLab allows unlimited private repositories for free whereas for GitHub, it is not free. GitLab is newer than GitHub, so naturally it is a little less popular than GitHub.

Scenario: Working on multiple versions of the same document. When you have to update the current branch with masters, you make the change in the master and pull it to the branch.

Feature branch can be worked on, edited, merged or deleted.

Git pull request for code review.

Git merging is merging feature into master.

Git rebasing is more linear. The feature branch is based on master.

How to find the commit report for the last week?

Git Tower UI gives a view of activity. Commit many changes on one commit (equash??) vs. one or small change per commit.

If you need to publish all versions, have separate folder for each?

#4 Getting User Feedback

Description:

What was written on the original topic used in the voting?

Are you allowed to talk to your users?

How do you know what you write is meeting their needs?

Have you found reliable, affordable solutions for getting constructive input from your audience?

When you have your users’ attention, what are you key DOs and DON’Ts for interacting with them?

Scribe: Cheryl SmithFacilitator: Dawn Stevens

Top takeaways:

Shared mailbox, feedback, link at bottom

User conference – inform people of link

Support site – feedback about topics – 1 person that tracks, feature not doing what we thought, tracked in Jira, building metrics

Do you respond to Users? Plan!

Interaction w/support – open tickets for documentation

Notes:

Some have talked to customers directly

Based on surveys – Add specific questions: Where do you go for doc?

Customer info – get account rep

Standard Operating process user AND writer

Development Angel – New major release if customer could not figure it out, I looked in doc to find or consult with developer and then incorporate into doc

Usability tests on site

Only 20-30% of tech writers talk to customers

Ways around: social media, tweet, doc-twitter, underused, facebook

Thumbs up/ thumbs down – generally not useful

1:1 usually better

Surveys – limited use

Usability testing of — can they find it?

User Experience Design

Support – monthly report: what are they asking? If there, why did they call? If not, can we add it?

#5 Job Market Stuff / Transitioning into Tech Writing

Description:

Let’s discuss the tech comm job market in the Bay area. Is it growing or shrinking? What trends are you seeing with opportunities? Is it all develop API type doc jobs, or are there may other opportunities as well? Where do you go to get the inside scoop on jobs — glassdoor, indeed, or other sources? How do you know which companies are toxic and where are ideal? Are will living in a bubble here? Does the high cost of living offset the terrible housing options? Are the sacrifices of living here worth the tradeoffs? Let’s talk about what makes working in the Bay area unique in tech comm.

Scribe: John Perry

Top takeaways:

State of the job market

Why/How did you get into tech writing?

Where do AI/Chatbots fit in

How to transition in

What hiring managers want

Interview the interviewer

Notes:

Job Market

Andrew (Synergistech):

Venture capitalists fear a recession; It all changed last fall to W2 onsite

A 1099 gets full hourly pay without benefits but gets more writeoffs

A W2 gets less per hour but full benefits and more job security

Paul Gustafson (Expert Support):

Last Fall began converting 1099s to W2s per the new CA law (core competence)

Jeremy Lowell (Docforce): There is a still ton of work, wave of opportunity

Explaining things without bias drives sales

36% of traffic to IBM site goes to docs first

Simplify complexity to make it understandable

Prediction: pendulum will eventually swing back to more 1099 contract work

Why tech writing?

Motivations of some of the transitioners

sw developer: wanted to combat incomprehensible docs

like talking about code more than writing it

sw developer: frustration with teaching coding camp

Law: fell into it from law policy procedure writing, los alamos regulatory compliance

American studies undergrad: wrote a lot of research papers but got uninteresting writing jobs (stuff her boss did not want to do.) Discovered that she dislikes marketing writing and likes accuracy, precision, better pay that tech writing provides.

Dave: Natural Language Processing relies on grammar, syntax and context; important for translation. Writers have this skill set!

Another important skill: ability to learn new things quickly

Transitioning in

A good recruiter adds value by focusing on fit for both the candidate and the employer.

Andrew (Synergistech): managers want to see that you can write , and what you know about their product/audience; they don’t want to teach you. At your interview, you should interview the manager to make sure this job will grow not be just a cog in the wheel. Managers are looking for enthusiasm, demonstrated aptitude, initiative.

Paul (Expert Support): hiring criteria have changed in past 10 yrs. Managers used to look at your skills and be willing to teach. Now that’s usually not how it works. Exception: brand new tech that can’t be learned outside.

Jeremy (Docforce): the recruiter’s reputation is also part of the vendor relationship. Long term relationship: the relationship outlasts the gig.

What do Hiring Managers Want?

STC stc-berkeley.org

July 2nd Wed of July hiring manager panel:

what are you looking for? Who would you hire?

excited ability to learn

who would you not hire?

Interview the Interviewer

How to sniff out the good longterm relationship vs the “use and lose”?

Look at the job description: does it demonstrate understanding of the job?

Ask at the interview about the long term expectations

See Synergistech website for example questions to ask your interviewer

#6 Ninja Talks

There are no notes from these. Anyone who wanted to could come to this session and try!